I’d gotten lost in my own swelling desire, but it seemed my climax was all Reyes needed to release his own firestorm. His muscles tensed around me as I felt the sweet sting of his climax spill onto his stomach, the evidence warm on his abdomen.
I felt him claw at his sheets as the orgasm coursed through him, ebbing only for a microsecond until it spiked again in time with his racing pulse. After a few agonizing moments, it slowly ebbed, leaving only Reyes’s labored breathing in its wake. He’d had a death grip on his sheets. He disentangled his fingers and ran them over his face before covering it with one arm.
He spoke to me then, his deep voice husky, spent. “Come sleep with me.”
When I didn’t answer, again unsure if I even could, he rose to clean himself off. I could see him more clearly now, but my touch was still more sensitive in this state than my sight. Something I’d have to work on, would have to strengthen like a muscle.
I stayed with him until he crawled back into bed and dragged a sheet haphazardly over his bottom half. Then he pressed his hand against the wall, and his lids drifted shut almost immediately. Just before I left, he whispered it again. “Come sleep with me.”
But he was out. It was odd sensing everything about him and yet not actually seeing him with my eyes but only in my mind’s eye. I could suddenly understand why, when he was growing up, he never knew if I was real or not. He’d thought I was a dream. That was exactly how this felt. Dreamlike. Real and yet not real. Tangible and yet untouchable, as though he would slip through my fingers if I actually tried get hold of him. But I’d done just that. Touched him. Caressed him. Milked him until he came.
I fell asleep immersed in his essence, in his taste and texture and earthy scent. I also fell asleep with my hand against the wall, his heat warming my palm not six inches away from his.
8
Clothes? sufficient
Keys? found ’em
Coffee cup? full
Sanity? sanity?
—T-SHIRT
I woke up what seemed like seconds later to a hand over my mouth, and that’s just never a pleasant way to wake up. Alarm spiked so fierce and so fast, Reyes was there instantly, incorporeally, engulfed in his black robe. It grew like a tidal wave around me, and I heard the sing of a blade being drawn. But I didn’t know what was happening. I held up a hand to stop him, trying to gain my bearings. A man in a black ski mask stood over me, a gun in his right hand, the tip of which was lodged against my left temple. A fact that made me very uncomfortable.
Reyes growled, and I could feel his visceral need to slice through the man, to overtake him. He pushed it back. Swallowed it down. But it wasn’t easy, and his control wouldn’t last long. Which meant I didn’t have long.
I forced myself to relax, to control my reactions, and sought the intruder’s intentions. Did he want me dead? If so, I was about to unleash an enraged son of Satan on his ass. But I recognized the reason for his presence instantly. He was carrying out orders. I could feel obligation, along with a disturbing sense of enjoyment, rush through him. He was a messenger, a fact that raised the question, whom was the message from?
The man laid a piece of paper on my chest, then used that hand to clutch my throat. “You have forty-eight hours to find out where they’re keeping her or your friend dies.” He shoved into me, crushing my larynx and jamming the barrel into my temple as a warning. “And no cops.” He shoved again, pushing off me; then he was gone.
Only as he was leaving did I realize there were two of them. They bolted through my bedroom door, having no idea how close they’d come to having their spines severed.
I coughed and drew in a deep breath as Reyes’s robe disappeared. He rushed to me. “Who the fuck was that?”
I held my neck, tested my throat with a quick swallow. “I have no idea. But I’m okay.”
“Like hell you are.”
“Wait, my friend?”
Dread sent a rush of adrenaline shooting up my spine. I jumped up and ran to Cookie’s apartment. She’d locked it, thank God. I pounded on the door, then went back for my key, but she opened the door before I could find it.
“Charley!” she said, hurrying forward. “What happened?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Cookie glanced around, wondering why she wouldn’t be.
“Amber,” I said a second before scrambling to Cookie’s apartment to check her room.
Cookie was right behind me, as was a flesh and blood Reyes Farrow. He’d thrown on a pair of jeans and come out of his apartment. I opened Amber’s bedroom door and turned on the light. She was sound asleep, her long dark hair tumbling over her pillow like a princess from a fairy tale.